the bolts.[66] The Government had vetoed Paget’s plan of removing the stores from Omagh and Armagh, because their real object was to increase the garrisons at those places; but, as they had no scruple about moving the much larger supply from the Victoria Barracks through the most intensely Orange quarter of Belfast, it could hardly be wondered at if such an order, under the circumstances, was held to give colour to the idea that Ministers wished to provoke violent opposition to the troops.  Not less inconsistent with the original pretext was the despatch of a battalion to Newry and Dundalk.  At the latter place there was already a brigade of artillery, with eighteen guns, which would prove a tough nut for “evil-disposed persons” to crack; and although both towns would be important points to hold with an army making war on Ulster, they were both in Nationalist territory where there could be no fear of raids by Unionists.  Yet the urgency was considered so great at the War Office to occupy these places in strength not later than the 20th that two cruisers were ordered to Kingstown to take the troops to Dundalk by sea, if there should be difficulty about land transport.

Whatever may have been the actual design of Mr. Churchill and Colonel Seely, who appear to have practically taken the whole management of the affair into their own hands, the dispositions must have suggested to anyone with elementary knowledge of military matters that nothing less than an overpowering attack on Belfast was in contemplation.  The transfer of the troops from Victoria Barracks, where they would have been useful to support the civil power in case of rioting, to Holywood, where they would be less serviceable for that purpose but where they would be in rapid communication by water with the garrison of Carrickfergus on the opposite shore of the Lough; the ordering of H.M.S. Pathfinder and Attentive to Belfast Lough, where they were to arrive “at daybreak on Saturday the 21st instant” with instructions to support the soldiers if necessary “by guns and search-lights from the ships[67]”; the secret and rapid garrisoning of strategic points on all the railways leading to Belfast,—­all this pointed, not to the safeguarding of stores of army boots and rifles, but to operations of an offensive campaign.

It was in this light that the Commander-in-Chief in Ireland himself interpreted his instructions, and, seeing that he had taken the responsibility of not fully obeying the much more modest orders he had received in Ireland on the 14th, it is easy to understand that he thought the steps now to be taken would lead to serious consequences.  He also foresaw that he might have trouble with some of the officers under his command, for before leaving London he persuaded the Secretary of State and Sir John French to give the following permission:  “Officers actually domiciled in Ulster would be exempted from taking part in any operation that might take place.  They would be permitted to ‘disappear’ [that being the exact phrase used by the War Office], and when all was over would be allowed to resume their places without their career or position being affected."[68]